Huawei launched Mate XT Ultimate, the first tri-fold smartphone, but one key detail remained a mystery: the chipset. While the company has not officially commented on the SoC powering its devices, a hands-on from the launch event in China revealed that the tri-fold is equipped with the Kirin 9010.
The chipset features an 8-core CPU consisting of 1x 2.3 GHz Taishan Big core, 3x 2.18 GHz Taishan Mid cores, and 4x 1.55 GHz Cortex-A510 cores, paired with a Maleoon 910 MP4 GPU.
The 12-thread 8-core Kirin 9010 chipset
Manufactured by SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation), the largest chipmaker in China, the Kirin 9010 is also used in the Pura 70 Ultra cameraphone. It’s built on a 7 nm process, locally called N+2, the same as the Kirin 9000s found in Huawei’s Mate 60 series.
In terms of performance, the Kirin 9010 is comparable to MediaTek’s Dimensity 8200 – impressive, considering the restrictions Chinese companies have faced. However, with the Mate XT Ultimate priced around $3,000 and performing similarly to a $300 phone, some users may feel disappointed.